


Human Contact

by heisenfox



Series: The Journey Home [1]
Category: The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Coda, Inspired by Novel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:12:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5014957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heisenfox/pseuds/heisenfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark Watney is safe aboard the Hermes, has showered and shaved, got to sleep in a bed, and looks forward to a lot of real food. What he finds he loves most, though, is real, actual, honest-to-god human contact. Well, that and a sound Beck keeps making around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Contact

**Author's Note:**

> Based on book canon -- Beck is the one who did the rescue, picks up at the end of the book and disregards the entirely made-up neat, tied up in a bow ending of the movie. (Not that I disliked it! I just like the book ending so much more!) This is a log entry of the very next day after his rescue. Beck's relationship with Johanssen is explained away because I'm garbage and really fell in love with the idea of Beck/Watney. I'm so sorry. Anyway, I tried to write this in sort of the same style as the book. Sorry if I totally failed! Self-beta'd, any typos are my own.

LOG ENTRY: MISSION DAY 688

I’m still  not used to that number, or to not having to count in Sols. Hell, I’m not used to clean clothes, or a clean body for that matter. After the painkillers Beck gave me yesterday kicked in, I practically _ran_ for the shower; okay, okay, stop laughing. I’d like to see any of you try and resist the allure of hot, running water after a year and a half alone on Mars! Let me tell you, running water is something I’ll never, _ever_ take advantage of again. I swear, my entire body was a prune by the time I decided I was ready to get out, and even then, it was another ten minutes before I could convince myself to _actually_ get out. I’m going to have the _worst_ water bill when I get back to Earth -- I plan on taking hour long showers at least twice a day, just because I can.

Even better than the shower, though, is the actual human contact. Don’t get me wrong, JPL, you guys were great to talk to over that weird almost-texting setup we had with Pathfinder and again in the Ares IV MAV, but nothing in this world beats hearing Vogel’s accent, Johanssen’s giggle, Lewis’s singing, or Martinez’s cackle again. The best sound, though, is the quiet huff of a sigh that Beck makes when he doesn’t know what to say, but feels like he has to fill the silence. I don’t know why this sound amuses me so much, but goddamn, I never want to be in a position where I can’t hear it whenever I want. I hope he’s prepared for me to bug him for the rest of his life, just to hear this sound. Because I’m going to. And since these idiots actually came back for me, there’s not a goddamn thing he can do to stop me.

I got him to do it almost six times today, and it’s not even 8pm yet! The first was an accident, and was actually how I found out that I like that sound; it doesn’t seem like much to you, probably. It’s literally just a soft exhale. But -- and really bear with me here to try to understand this -- I just got done with almost two years of hearing absolutely nothing aside from my own sounds. Well, that and Lewis’s godawful disco. So while hearing Vogel talk, or Lewis sing, or Johanssen and Martinez laughing is quite obviously wonderful and well and good, there’s something so… _human_ about a sigh.

Anyway, I rolled out of bed at the super late hour of 11am, and immediately made my way to the kitchen in search of anything other than potatoes. Beck was the only one in there, making a cup of coffee and eating some eggs, and he smiled tiredly as soon as he saw me.

“How was your shower last night?” he asked warily, as though afraid I’d never made it and my stench was going to hit him any second.

“Running water, Beck,” I drawled. “Running. Fucking. Water. Oh, and I used your shampoo. No offense, Commander, if you hear this, but your shampoo and soap is as flowery as your goddamn disco.”

“So, why mine?” Beck had asked, his voice sounding constricted.

“Honestly? It was the nearest one other than Lewis’s. Johanssen, Vogel, and Martinez are too good to leave theirs actually in the shower, and by the time I was ready for it, there was no way in hell I was getting out of the water. Anyway,” I’d said as I moved next to him to heat up some sausages, “I clearly made a good choice. I smell fantastic and my hair doesn’t feel like something you pull out of your drain when it’s clogged. Go ahead, man, take a whiff,” I joked.

And there it was --  that soft exhalation, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. Instead of leaning in to smell me like I’d told him to, he just put down his empty plate, downed the last of his coffee, and hugged me briefly before heading out. “Don’t eat too much, too quickly,” he called over his shoulder. “You won’t like puking with those broken ribs.”

Anyway, I had my breakfast, which, let me just say -- eating not-potatoes is most underrated option in the history of the world. I’m obviously grateful for my botany prowess, and the fact that we’d had real potatoes to farm in the first place, but if I never even think the word potato again, it’ll be too fucking soon. As soon as I finished eating, I popped another pain pill so the ache that was creeping back into my ribs would go away before it turned into an actual stabbing pain, and then I headed to the rec room. The journey there was kind of fun, honestly; I had adjusted to walking in Mars gravity, which is about 40% of the force of gravity on Earth, but floating around in 0 Gs? That’s something I definitely missed. I may or may not have done a few flips as I “swam” my way to the rec room.

Once I got there, I immediately plopped down onto the couch and stuck my legs out so my feet were in Beck’s lap. Now, this was a two-part action; mainly, I did it because, like I said -- human contact. Sometimes when I’m aboard the Hermes, it still feels like a dream. There, I said it. NASA’s team of psychologists are gonna have a field day with me. PTSD is a given, but who knows how many other things I’ll be grappling with once I finally touch my feet to the solid ground of the Earth again. Anxiety, for sure. Anyway, sometimes I can’t convince myself it’s real and that I’ve actually been rescued; I’m convinced I’ll wake up in the Hab, or worse, the rover. The only way I can convince myself that being aboard the Hermes is real is through, you guessed it -- human contact.

Are you tired of those words yet, team of NASA analysts poring over my logs? How about once more for good measure? Human. Contact. Sorry, I know, I’m an asshole. You’re probably tired of me by now. But that’s how it works. If I can touch someone on the crew, even if it’s just bumping shoulders or kicking them as they pass, it’s so solidly _real_ that even my anxiety and terror can’t convince me they’re a dream. So, naturally, I wanted to be able to tangibly feel Beck on the couch next to me. I had a feeling he’d get up and move if I sat right next to him, since it was a sofa, not a loveseat, so feet it was. It’s small, but it’s enough. And, of course, I had the ulterior motive of hoping he’d make that little sighing sound again. As if on cue, he did, the moment my feet landed on his thighs.

A tiny, soft exhalation, a few moments hesitation as he continued reading whatever book Vogel had lent him, and then his free hand was gripping my ankle. I don’t know if he knew the contact was necessary for my mental stability, or if he needed it himself; I already knew going in that Lewis was going to be a little tough to loosen up, that she bore the brunt of the responsibility for leaving me behind. I still don’t blame any of them, by the way. Keep taking note of that, NASA. Fuck your fucking inquiries into this expedition. They did _everything_ according to spec. If you want to sue someone, sue Mars. Good luck, she’s a tough broad. Anyway, I knew Lewis was going to carry some guilt; I didn’t anticipate Beck carrying some too. I could tell, because he always tenses up a little when he sees me now, which is substantially more than the rest of the crew has so far, seeing as he’s the doctor and all. I asked Martinez last night why Beck didn’t seem as stoked to see me as everyone else, and he said it’s something to do with Beck being the one that pronounced me dead, which led to them all leaving.

Of course, that’s some more bullshit guilt. My biometer had been shut down. They had every reason to think I was dead. If they had gotten a readout at all in that storm, it would’ve been from the moment the antenna pierced my side -- not a very good readout. It probably would’ve signaled me dying, and that added to the moment that my monitor just cut out? That sure sounds like a dead astronaut to me. They _had_ to leave me. You hear me, NASA lawyers? They had no other choice. Either we all died because they stupidly stayed behind and the MAV fell over, sustaining irreparable damage, leaving us to all starve to death if we even survived the storm, or the five of them had the best odds for survival and I maybe died a little later than that storm planned for me.

So, yeah. Beck’s got a good chunk of guilt on his shoulders too. Which is why my mission today was to get him to make that soft little sighing sound as many times as possible. Six times in nine hours is pretty good, if I do say so myself. I think my goal tomorrow will be ten. Should be a lot easier since he wants to do a full health panel tomorrow; I may have lost a lot of weight on Mars, but I like to think I’m still a pretty good looking guy. He’ll be seeing me practically naked; it’ll be hard for him to contain himself, I’m sure. Side-note: turns out I was wrong about him and Johanssen. They’re something like platonic soulmates. Sort of like me and Martinez, I guess. Super compatible in every way except sexually. So, Dr. Beck, I hope you’re ready for tomorrow. For anyone stuck with only the audio files of this instead of the video -- probably the ones responsible for transcription so they don’t get distracted by my pretty face, right NASA? -- I just waggled my eyebrows lasciviously. You’re welcome for that visual, my dear listeners. Mark Watney, seduction master.

Anyway, it’s about 8:30pm now, so I’m gonna head back down to the rec room. I have it on good authority that Beck is in there now. Okay, okay, full disclosure -- I checked the surveillance videos. You got me, I’m stalking the boy I like. This is so middle school. Except, y’know. We’re on a spaceship. Oh my god, am I the first space stalker? Mark Watney: Space Pirate, King of Mars, Space Stalker. That’ll be a good title to my memoirs one day. For now, though, I’m gonna be Mark Watney, fumbling idiot with a crush who forgot how to properly handle human contact. Maybe Beck’ll make that noise some more tonight. If you’ll excuse me, I’m dying to find out. See you tomorrow, NASA logs. See you in a few months, Earth. Hopefully never see you again, Mars.

This is yet another happiest day of my life.


End file.
